I remember a few years ago when fidget spinners were the big thing. My husband and I thought something so simple, why couldn’t we have thought of that? So simple, but definitely hit a market at the time. I feel it is the same for digital photo organizing. It is a unique service that is fairly unknown but is needed by so many people. As technology continues to be further entwined into our daily lives we need to take care of our digital media and our photos hold such precious memories and meaning they need to be taken care of.
I love helping people get a handle on their photo collections. Each digital organizing project is unique but the framework remains the same.
The four steps to organizing digital photos
- Consolidate
- Remove duplicates
- Organize
- Backup
Let’s begin by Consolidating all your digital photos. This step takes some thought, I bet you have photos in more places than you realize. Think about current and outdated technology. Your current computer and phone, but then maybe you also have an old phone, an old computer, some pictures on DVD or even an old digital camera. They are hiding around; I have a photo organizing checklist for you to help you think of all the locations you may find some of your photos. Click here to grab it. In this step, you don’t need to worry if you have multiple copies of your photos because we will take care of that in the next step.
After finding all your digital photos and consolidating them into one location, then it’s time to remove duplicates. You may be surprised by this step but it is so easy to accumulate multiple copies of your photos. They may get saved once and then forgotten and saved in another place. Maybe you had a backup copy and are not sure what is backed up. With all your photos in one location, it is now easy to use technology to find your duplicates. There is software that does the heavy work for you. The duplicate program searches your files for photos that are exactly alike based on the image, not on the file information. It’s so much fun to watch it run and clean up all those duplicate photos.
Next comes the organizing. Again, it is the software that will do all the work. I prefer organizing my photos by year and month, but it’s your system and it has to be what works best for you. Just let the organizing software run, it uses the metadata in the photos to put them into a nicely organized file system making it so easy for you to find your special photos.
And finally, you have a nicely organized photo library, and it’s time to backup your photo collection. I just wrote a post on the recommended backup system, 3-2-1 check it out. At this point it is simple to make 3 copies of your photo library, using at least 2 different sources with one copy off-site.
And now you get to ENJOY your photo collection, knowing it is safely backup and protected from loss. Your photos are easy to find, allowing you to create meaningful projects for you, your family, and your friends.
When you are ready to get started I am available to offer help and support with my consultation services or I can complete the entire project for you with my digital organizing service. Click here to get started!
